Tag: Idea competition

Idea contests can help solve social problems in your community. It’s one of our favourite things about innovation! But running idea competitions can take a lot of resources. Your organisation has a finite amount of time and money to do all the things that go into keeping your team running. Why should you spend those valuable resources on an idea contest?

It turns out that even the process of an idea contest without an end product can be great for business. This is because:

• Running an innovation competition can help people discover your products and services.
• It allows people to engage with your organisation, and to get interested in your mission.
• It helps you learn about your community. You can engage with people from a wide variety of groups to see how they respond to different products or programs...

And the winner is… eMio sharing!

Climate KIC was looking for solutions that reduce carbon emissions in urban transport systems. After 10 finalist teams attended venture weekend workshops, a winner and two runner ups were announced. eMio sharing is a scooter sharing program that will be implemented in Berlin in 2015.

This challenge is a great example of how online and offline platforms can be utilised to get the most out of your idea competition. Let’s review the process climate KIC took to get their sustainable transport initiative:

1. Definition of Challenge and Call For Proposals

Climate KIC was clear about what problem they wanted to solve:

THE CHALLENGE

Urban transport is a significant contributor to climate change. About 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU presently come from transport, with 84% of that...

Hackathons are collaborative innovation events, which offer a great opportunity for highly motivated individuals with any professional background to come together to exchange ideas. These open spaces are a great contradiction to traditional setups. One key driver here is open source thinking – people sharing methods, data and ideas without obstacles, which works fine as long as it involves open source licensed material, but if intellectual property rights come to play, it can get critical.

It is important for those organizing hackathons to beware of the licenses of the data being used. A key point is to decided whether the data would be available only once or shared through an API in the future. This is decisive for the development of sustainable product solutions. Agreements on intellectual property rights among participants should be stipulated at the very start, or at...

Social innovation is creating a new idea for positive impact. So then ,why, you might be asking, am I writing a whole (multiple part) blog post about the definition of social innovation when I could fit it in a tweet! Like all good bloggers and internet nerds, I want to give you my (unsolicited) opinion on what really makes social innovation tick. To do that I think we need more answers:

** 1) How do we get these new ideas? **

** 2) What is positive impact? **

Answers:

1) How do you get new ideas?

Good ideas, are often thought of as coming from exceptionally brilliant people with a stroke of creativity. However, we believe that everyone has great ideas, if only the right conditions are met. Here are some of those conditions:

• You have a...

In today’s world of social media, marketing is no longer a one-way monologue. Several organisations have run successful marketing campaigns that follow the crowdsourcing model. These campaigns have the advantage of making consumers feel involved and engaged. This is valuable in an era when the public is becoming desensitized to the many marketing messages they face every day.

Let’s take a look at a few companies that have successfully used crowdsourcing for marketing.

Lego Ideas

Lego Ideas, which was originally known as Lego Cuusoo, invites Lego fans from around the world to share ideas for new Lego products. Any idea that wins the support of 10,000 site members will be considered for production, and the person who suggested it will get 1 percent of the royalties.

Not only has the Lego Ideas program led to the creation of six...

“It takes two flints to make a fire.” ― Louisa May Alcott

We talk a lot about collaboration when we talk about innovation. We can get better ideas, valuable feedback, and meaningful conversation when we are open to collaboration. But this conversation remains at the participant level. What about creating innovative partnerships to expand the reach and effectiveness of your initiative? In the groundbreaking book: “CrowdStorm” the authors outline the various partnerships for innovation to pursue to ensure success in your project. If you have got a great idea for an innovation initiative that you want to take to the next level, consider partnering with these types of organisations and individuals:

Media Partners

Finding a media partnership for innovation is a great way to boost your publicity and tap into your target markets on a low budget. Search...

We have created something special for our readers and clients who really want to master the art of Open Innovation. We love writing these blog posts with quick tips and best practices, but we wanted to make something for our readers who want to delve deeper into using Open Innovation in their organisations. The 7 day course will be delivered straight to your inbox, and will help you get the most out of Open Innovation. You may be interested in the course if:

• You are looking to get the most out of innovation challenges and events
• You would like to learn about the different strategies of idea sharing and crowdsourcing
• You want to create a strong community around your project
• You want to become an Open Innovation expert.

How can you get the best ideas for your...

So, you have decided to run an idea competition. You have booked a space and started to reach out to potential participants, but there is one thing left to be sorted: What will you offer as the prize? Even if the challenge is going to better the world, having the right prize is essential. A good prize helps attract participants and raise the quality of ideas submitted. To start off we should explore the two different types of prizes for an idea competition:

1. A grand prize
2. A grant scheme

In the first category, a prize is selected, ideas are submitted, a panel of judges selects the winner and they receive the prize. It is then up to the prize giver if they would like to include the group in the implementation of the project.

In the second...

“It isn’t all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.” ― Gene Roddenberry

A few weeks ago we shared with you ten reasons why open innovation fails. While it is great to know what not to do, we now want to share with you our favourite tips on how to run a great open innovation contest:

##1. Know why you are choosing an Open Innovation challenge There are many ways to go about gathering new ideas for your project. You could put out a call for grant submissions, or seek new ideas from your employees. What do you hope to achieve from an Open Innovation Challenge that you could not get elsewhere? Nesta provides a wonderful guide to Challenge Prizes that outline many of the benefits of running a challenge yourself. Some of...

So, you are ready to innovate. You have an open idea contest planned and are ready to measure the positive effects of your campaign to your organisation. It is a couple months before the contest date and you get a short email from one of your participants asking where to show up on the day of. You realise you have not yet thought about where you will be hosting your challenge. You do not want to host it in any old school gym or church basement, you want a space that is going to encourage creative thinking and debate. But what are the sort of things you should look for in choosing an innovation hub? Design? Utility? Size?

We have watched many idea contests succeed and fail - some of our observations can be seen here. But today we...

Environmental issues tend to be constantly changing and evolving, requiring adaptive and dynamic approaches that are provided by social innovation.

The European Commission (EC) recently released a report on Social Innovation and the Environment. The study outlines samples of community projects that use Social Innovation techniques and strategys to creat eco-friendly services in various locations in the EU. Which brings us to the following questions:

1.What is so unique about Social Innovation that it gives us the tools we need to build more sustainable communities?

**2. How can you use this information to improve the eco-friendliness of services and products that you provide to your customers and communities? **

The processes of Social Innovation are structured to utilize the creativity of the croud by using;

collaboration, participation, co-production, grassroots approaches and cross-sectoral working. As such, social...

At We Thinq, we talk a lot about how to innovate but we don’t always talk about why we innovate. Instead of telling you what we think the reasons are, we are going to let the examples speak for themselves. Below is a list of organisations that are innovating for social and environmental good. We’ve also included some organisations that will help you get your project started, or help your company get started with social innovation. We love working with companies that are interested in innovating not just for profit, but to better the world. Let us know what you think!

This list is updated regularly. Last update: November 30, 2016

What is Social Innovation

• Open Innovation Blog - Innovation blog with focus on social innovation across a variety of sectors
• Young Foundation - Examples and...

Nesta is an innovation charity that helps bring great ideas to life. Back in April 2012 Nesta launched the Centre for Challenge Prizes and since then has run a number of open innovation and idea contests including the European Social Innovation Competition and the Waste Reduction Challenge Prize. We interviewed Jennifer Clayton, the coordinator of the Centre for Innovation Prizes, about her experience using the WE THINQ software to run innovation contests:

Q:What was the background and goal of your idea contest?

Nesta’s Centre for Challenge Prizes wanted to find people or groups that could: Create a new product, technology or service that utilises data to significantly improve the ability of households or small businesses to demonstrate measurable reduction in carbon emissions by shifting energy demand to off peak times or towards excess renewable generation.

Q:Are...

Open challenges are becoming an essential part of open innovation processes. Companies and non-profit institutions like universities publicly describe a problem and whoever has an idea can propose solutions.

Online open challenges can easily be set up, it only takes a few key strokes to customize specialized web offers. But open challenges are valuable not only for their pure results, but for the discussions between contestants. The solution to a problem might not be one proposal, but may lie in the combination of two or more. Pure online challenges are easily scalable and can attract large crowds. On the flip side, it can be challenging to spur productive debates between contestants.

To recognize the potential of combining their ideas and to stay in touch as part of a new innovative community, participants need to know and trust each other. Trust...

Few industries are as much in need of innovation as the energy sector. For decades, a few large utilities generated power and fed it through to consumers using their own power grids. Companies did not have to cope with the constant change that producers of consumer goods or technology firms need to adapt to. But in recent years, the industry setting has increasingly been challenged by the rise of renewable energies (and in Germany by the end to nuclear energy as well). Power generation has become less predictable and less centralized, which means power grids need to become more flexible and intelligent. Consumers are increasingly generating power by themselves through solar panels and wind turbines. They are becoming more and more aware of their consumption patterns and are seeking to consciously manage their consumption.

A growing trend in business innovation...

New solutions are being sought in all areas to combat climate change. In addition to renewable energy, saving energy is an important pillar of this effort. For example, approaches at home to make saving energy more simple. Climate-KIC, a large “Knowledge and Innovation” community, joined ranks with companies such as Vattenfall to sponsor a Europe-wide idea contest exploring the topic. We came up with a special dynamic that resulted in the participation of over 800 participants.

The first stage saw the competition held online, whereby we had established the following typical phases in conjunction with Climate-KIC:

1. Phase: Idea generation
2. Phase: Collaboration
3. Phase: Pitch ideas and vote

The effort kicked off across different networks by mobilizing smart folks looking to implement new ways to improve indoor climate and asking them to contribute ideas. The winner not only had...